


Third Wheel

by thedropoutandthejunkie (elenajames)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Sam, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 02:57:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3879571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elenajames/pseuds/thedropoutandthejunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Sam's feeling a little left out of their relationship because Benny and Dean had all that time together in Purgatory that they don't really talk about and Sam wasn't a part of. So Sam has been kinda distant lately and Dean and Benny are worried it's because he doesn't want to be with them or is uncomfortable with their relationship. But they talk to him and he explains and then it's lots of cuddles and happy fluffy stuff at the end</p>
            </blockquote>





	Third Wheel

Sam skips out on dinner, claiming to be tired and just wanting to get to bed. And, although he tries, Benny isn’t quite able to to mask the worried expression that crosses his face before Dean sees it. 

“Third time this week,” Benny says quietly when it’s clear that Dean is going to ask. “Suppose he’ll sleep in his room again?” 

Frowning, Dean puts his fork back down, pushing his plate across the table. “I’m gonna go talk to him.” 

“Dean I don’t -” 

“He’s my brother, Benny. I’ll talk to him.” 

“He might be your brother, sugar, but he’s  _our_ partner.” Benny sees immediately how Dean’s shoulders are tight, the clench of his jaw, and he can’t help but slip around behind him to knead at the tension. “What is it, cher?” 

There are a few long, silent moments before Dean whispers, “What if it’s us?” The sharp pang that shoots through Benny’s chest is the same one he’s been feeling for weeks, the one that hits him with every half-hearted kiss from Sam, every time the man has made some excuse to get away, every time he’s left his side of the bed cold to sleep in his old room.  

Closing his eyes, Benny takes a slow breath before speaking again. “We might never know ‘less we ask. C’mon.” 

Quietly, the both of the make their way down to Sam’s room, only to find it empty. Dean looks at Benny meaningfully, and leading the way back to the room they share. They’re just outside when Benny grabs Dean by the back of his shirt, stopping him short of grabbing the doorknob. Dean quirks a brow, questioning, and Benny draws him back down the hallway a short distance. 

“I can hear him,” Benny murmurs into Dean’s ear. “Cryin’.” 

Dean sucks in a breath through his teeth, body going tense against the vampire’s hold, and Benny knows he doesn’t have long before protective older brother instincts take over.  

“Gonna have to be gentle, cher. Don’t rush him, alright?” There’s a flicker of irritation that dances over Dean’s face, but he nods after a moment. 

“Sammy?” Dean’s voice barely breaks the quiet of the room, and Sam’s quiet sobs choke off. In a flurry of motion, he’s scrambling out of the bed, furtively trying to wipe his eyes as he edges around the other men toward the door. 

“Sorry. I’m sorry I’m just gonna … m’sorry.” 

“Sam.” Benny reaches out, gently resting a hand on Sam’s shoulder. It’s not a grip, not restraining, but Sam falters in the hasty escape he’s trying to make out of the room. “You’re cryin’, pet.” 

“It’s - just a bad day,” Sam’s trying to play it off, shove it away, and it throws Dean and Benny off. “I don’t want to bother, so I’ll just go.” 

“Why would you be a bother, Sammy?” Soft, but firm, Dean’s question seems to be what breaks Sam’s fragile control over his emotions. Even in the dim room, they can both see the way his expression crumples. 

Ducking his face away from them, he mutters “Because I am.” 

He really tries to leave then, but Benny’s gentle push back is more than enough to stop  him. Sam allows himself to be guided to the bed, Benny on one side and Dean on the other. 

“Is this not okay, anymore, Sam?” Dean’s voice is tight, tension that Benny can feel reflected in himself. “The three of us … please. Sam, if you don’t want it -”

“No,” Sam gasps, shaking his head fervently, suddenly grasping at both their knees. “No I - I assumed you didn’t.” 

That statement hangs heavy over the three of them, long enough that Sam assumes he’s revealed the truth, and this time it’s Dean who stops him from getting up, cupping his little brother’s face in his hands even if Sam won’t meet his eyes. 

“Tell me why, little brother.” 

Told between hitches of breath and long moments where Sam can’t seem to speak, he carefully lays it out. Waking up alone in their bed, to find Benny and Dean sharing drinks and talking in the kitchen, stopping as soon as he enters the room. The way their silent communication on hunts doesn’t quite make sense to Sam, leaving him fumbling to keep up and feeling incompetent. How they fuck roughly, desperately in almost any room in the house, when Sam can only seem to lure them into touching him in the dark of their shared bed. How it seems like Purgatory ties them closer together - closer than brothers - than everything and anything else that the three of them have been through together. His voice trickles to a stop, hoarse from speaking and choked back tears. 

Benny’s eyes are shining when he looks at Dean, and the expression of horror on the other man’s face tells him all he needs to know. “We didn’t want to hurt you, Sam. Dean an’ I we - hell. Not bein’ able to sleep, the nightmares we didn’t want to put that on you,” Benny tries to explain. 

“And the-,” Dean coughs, wiping his eyes. “On the hunt. Sam, there’s nobody either of us would rather have at our backs than you. Yeah, we have a different, I don’t know, way of signaling but… The three of us haven’t together as much as I’ve hunted with you or Benny’s hunted with me. We’ll adapt, learn each other.” Dean seems to realize he’s rambling, looks up at Benny pleadingly for help, but it’s then that Sam speaks again. 

“That doesn’t explain why you can’t touch me like you do each other,” his voice is low. “You two - it’s like you can’t get enough. And I’m an afterthought. An obligation. I don’t want to tie you down like that.” 

“We were afraid of hurting you,” Benny says faintly. “Instead we’ve gone and hurt you worse.” 

“Hurting me?” 

“Purgatory was survival and blood and everything else but - Pure. There’s no other way to describe it. And Sam sometimes … Sometimes it’s hard not to want that back. Violence and sex - in sex - it’s one way we found that comes close.” Dean rushes, spilling the words out like he’s revealing a dirty secret and that any hesitation means he’ll stop altogether. “We didn’t want to hurt you. It can get dangerous. Bloody. Painful, Sammy and I wasn’t sure either of us could live with ourselves if we did that to you.” 

The silence is longer this time, stretching out agonizingly, each of them afraid to break it. 

“Can we lay down?” Sam whispers. “Together? I. I need to think.” 

Stripping off clothes and boots, pulling back the covers, they settle in together with Sam in the middle. He tucks his face against Dean’s chest, and Benny presses as close behind him as he can get. Their hands stroke his arms, back, sides, and Dean starts humming as he runs one hand through his brother’s hair. 

“You still want me?” 

“If you want us,” they say together, startled at their unison response. Surprisingly, that’s what gets Sam to huff a laugh. He shifts onto his back, angling for a kiss from Benny and then Dean, settling down between them with a sigh. 

“We’ll need to talk more. In the morning,” Sam says tentatively, but his tension fades when both the other men murmur their consent. He sinks into their warmth and their scent, slipping off to an exhausted sleep before he realizes it. 

But waking up with them on either side of him in the morning is the best he’s felt in a while. 


End file.
